This paper advances a novel hypothesis regarding the historical roots of labor emancipation. It argues that the decline of coercive labor institutions in the industrial phase of development has been an inevitable by-product of the intensification of capital-skill complementarity in the...

We document that U.S. employment polarization in the 1980-2008 period is largely generated by women. Female employment shares increase both at the bottom and at the top of the skill distribution, generating the typical U-shape polarization graph, while male employment shares decrease in a more...

Non-cognitive skills programs may be an important policy option to improve the academic outcomes of adolescents. In this paper, we evaluate experimentally the EPIS program, which is based on bi-weekly individual or small-group non-cognitive mediation short meetings with low-performing students....

We study how international trade affects manufacturing employment and the relative wage of unskilled workers when goods and services are traded with different intensities. Manufacturing trade reduces manufacturing prices worldwide, which reduces manufacturing employment if manufactures and...

In this paper, we study the effect of the timing of puberty on educational achievement and examine to what extent the gender differences in the timing of puberty can explain gender differences in achievement. We use British cohort data that combine information on pubertal development with test...

The article presents the results of the project regarding the development of the requirements to controllers’ professional competences. The aim of the empirical part of the study is to assess the current situation in Poland in this field. During the study, opinions of two expert groups are...

Market-oriented reforms, such as liberalizing trade and encouraging foreign direct investment, can generate large efficiency gains for a country. However, there is also concern that lower-skilled workers are increasingly being replaced by technology and that more globalized markets are harming...

In this paper, we study the development and underlying drivers of skill premiums in Germany between 1980 and 2008. We show that the significant increase in the medium to low skill wage premiums since the late 1980s was almost exclusively concentrated among the group of workers aged 30 or below....

In a number of countries, youth unemployment is a pressing economic and political concern. In India, 54 percent of the country's population of 1.21 billion is below the age of 25 and faces a high rate of (disguised) unemployment. To augment youth employment, the Government of India has launched...

We examine the changes in the relative rewards to cognitive and non-cognitive skill during the time period 1992–2013. Using unique administrative data for Sweden, we document a secular increase in the returns to non-cognitive skill, which is particularly pronounced in the private sector and at...

Earnings inequality declined rapidly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile during the 2000s. A reduction in the experience premium is a fundamental driver of declines in upper-tail (90/50) inequality, while a decline in the education premium is the primary determinant of the evolution of lower-tail...

This paper explores families' investment in skills development through education in a high-inequality, low-education quality country such as Mexico, comparing it to a lower-inequality, higher-quality education country such as the United States. The paper uses a series of high-quality Household...

Almost all of the literature about the growth of income inequality and the relationship between skilled and unskilled wages approaches the issue from the production side of general equilibrium (skill-biased technical change, international trade). Here, we add a role for income-dependent demand...

Field-of-study mismatch occurs when a worker, trained in a particular field, works in another field. This study draws on the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) to explore how skill supply and labour market demand dynamics influence mismatch. It updates cross-national estimates on mismatch and...

The term skill mismatch is very broad and can relate to many forms of labour market friction, including vertical mismatch, skill gaps, skill shortages, field of study (horizontal) mismatch and skill obsolescence. In this paper we provide a clear overview of each concept and discuss the...

Our paper makes a first attempt to address the impact of skills and skill use in the analysis of the gender wage gap using the PIAAC dataset. Using the case of Austria, we show that skill use as well as the skill match play an important role with regard to wage regressions of men as well as...